In the age of carbon emission limitations and unstable fuel prices, identifying ways to reduce a vehicle's power consumption and overall environmental impact are important. One such problem is an undesired increase in fuel consumption associated with vehicle's cruise or speed control operation when the vehicle is traversing an uphill portion of a roadway. Conventional speed control systems are characterized by an inflexible speed control functionality that closely tracks a driver-selected cruising speed setting, which results in an unnecessary waste of fuel when an engine needs to compensate for the uphill terrain variations.